In the embattled city of el-Fasher, North Darfur’s capital and the Sudanese military’s last stronghold in the vast Darfur region, a relentless siege has pushed the population to the brink. Between September 19 and 29, 2025, the United Nations reported that at least 91 civilians were killed in a series of attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have used artillery, drones, and ground assaults to devastating effect. These incidents, confirmed by multiple international agencies including the UN and the World Health Organization, underscore the intensifying violence and humanitarian crisis gripping Sudan’s western heartland.
The city of el-Fasher, under siege for more than a year as of October 2025, has become the epicenter of a brutal conflict between the RSF and Sudan’s army. According to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, the RSF repeatedly struck the city’s Daraja Oula neighborhood during the ten-day period, employing a mix of artillery shelling, drone strikes, and ground incursions. Türk issued a stark warning, saying urgent action was needed to prevent “large-scale, ethnically-driven attacks and atrocities in El Fasher.” He added, “atrocities are not inevitable. They can be averted if all actors take concrete action to uphold international law, demand respect for civilian life and property, and prevent the continued commission of atrocity crimes.”
The violence has not let up. On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, an RSF missile slammed into a residential area, killing 16 people, including three women, and injuring 21 others, among them five children, as reported by the Sudan Doctors Network. The network described the incident as a “massacre,” emphasizing that civilians remain the primary targets. Just a week prior, the RSF struck a bustling market, leaving 15 dead, and in late September, a drone attack on al-Safiyah Mosque during dawn prayers killed at least 78 worshippers. Satellite analysis by the Yale Humanitarian Lab indicated that the munition used in the mosque attack was likely an RSF suicide drone, as there was “no visible ground scarring or crater inside the mosque, indicating that the munition detonated on impact with the mosque roof.”
The RSF’s offensive has tightened what many describe as one of the longest urban sieges in modern warfare. More than 260,000 civilians are believed to be trapped inside el-Fasher, unable to escape the encircling RSF forces, which have extended a 68-kilometer (42-mile) berm around the city’s perimeter. For those who attempt to flee, the risks are grave. Human rights organizations have documented violations and killings by RSF fighters of people trying to leave, and the few routes out lead to refugee camps where famine has already been declared in some areas. Mukesh Kapila, professor of global health and humanitarian affairs at the University of Manchester, told Al Jazeera that residents face “an extremely difficult calculation,” as “the situation in the surrounding refugee camps, where famine has been declared in some, is not necessarily much better.”
The siege has also led to catastrophic shortages of food, water, and medicine. According to Sarra Majdoub, a former UN expert on Sudan, “What little food remains is beyond the reach of most. Two kilos of millet sell for $100, a kilo of sugar or flour for $80 while the average monthly salary, when salaries were still paid, was $70.” The cruelty of the situation, UN rights chief Türk noted, is compounded by “continued arbitrary RSF restrictions on bringing food and essential supplies into the city and credible reports of civilians tortured and killed by RSF fighters for doing so.” The World Food Program estimates that more than 24 million people across Sudan are now facing acute hunger, while the ongoing civil war, which erupted in 2023, has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced some 12 million.
The humanitarian crisis is not limited to shortages of basic necessities. Journalists and aid workers trapped inside el-Fasher have reported a campaign of violence, intimidation, and sexual assault. A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists detailed testimony from seven reporters, including one unnamed woman who said armed men raided her home and gang-raped her. “Everyone is afraid to work,” said journalist Lana Awad Hassan, who fled after being shot in the leg, in a report to the Associated Press. “Even if you write a good report, you don’t publish it under your name. Both the RSF and the Sudanese army target journalists, but that does not stop us.” According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, RSF fighters have used informants to identify media personnel, leading to arrests, beatings, and further intimidation.
Efforts to ease the city’s suffering have been limited and fraught with difficulty. The Sudanese military managed to airdrop limited aid supplies to el-Fasher on Monday, September 29, 2025—the first such delivery since fighting intensified in April. Mohanad Elbalal, co-founder of the Khartoum Aid Kitchen, confirmed the drop, citing accounts from journalists and aid workers on the ground. However, the scale of the crisis far outstrips these efforts, and airdrops remain a stopgap measure.
Diplomatic moves have offered little immediate relief. Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, expressed support for efforts to lift the siege in talks with Sudanese foreign minister Mohi el-Din Salem, according to a statement from Cairo’s foreign ministry. Yet, no concrete details have emerged about how or when such relief might arrive. Meanwhile, the Sudanese army claimed on October 1, 2025, that its forces had killed “a large number of mercenaries from Colombia and Ukraine,” describing them as engineers specializing in drone systems who were allegedly assisting the RSF. These claims, while dramatic, have not been independently verified and point to the increasingly internationalized nature of the conflict.
As the siege grinds on, the city’s remaining residents and those documenting the crisis continue to face impossible choices. The Resistance Committees in el-Fasher, a coalition of local activists tracking war crimes, confirmed that RSF fighters used both drones and artillery to target civilians in Daraja Oula, though it remains unclear if this refers to the same strike reported by medical networks. The RSF has not responded to media requests for comment regarding these incidents.
With the focus of Sudan’s civil war now squarely on el-Fasher, the city stands as a grim symbol of the country’s broader tragedy. The conflict, which began with hopes of political reform and stability, has instead produced a landscape of siege, displacement, and starvation. For the people of el-Fasher, the future remains deeply uncertain, and the world’s attention, once again, is urgently needed to prevent further atrocities and to support those trapped in the crossfire.
